Efficient synthesis strategy and synergistic effect of Ni-Fe-Ru electrode for boosting alkaline water electrolysis

Abstract

Hydrogen production from alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) has promising potential in energy storage due to the advantages of low cost and large scale, but its bottleneck is the low current density and poor durability of non-precious metal electrodes. Although numerous electrode designs with superior activity have been reported, the complicated synthesis process and refined microstructure have not changed the high preparation cost, high resistance, and poor durability of conventional AWE electrodes. Here, we report an efficient synthesis strategy of high-density Ni-Fe-Ru electrode (particle size < 5 nm) and explore the synergistic effect between Ni-Fe-Ru elements at different potentials. The electrode exhibits excellent OER activity (264 mV@100 mA cm−2, Tafel slope = 49 mV dec−1) and AWE performance (400 mA cm−2@1.89 V), it can work stably for 300 h at 500 mA cm−2, with potential for industrial applications.